Resistance
by RebelliousWaffle
Summary: After the Fall of Lothal, the survivors have evacuated to a obscure planet called Caldera to regroup- but Mandalore comes under siege from the First Order, and Manda'lor the Hunter's envoy finds Sabine first. (Being Rewritten from Chapter 5-onwards)
1. Hey! Rewrite!

**_Hey! RebelliousWaffle says hello!_**

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**_This story is undergoing a total rewrite._****_Simple reasons; I've taken a long look at what I want to achieve here, and I've decided that the first few chapters that I've published are actually harming my goal. With that in mind, I've begun to completely restructure and rewrite the story from the ground up._****_Don't worry about any of the OCs or other characters I've introduced, for the most part. All of them are going to remain, and many of the later chapters are the same. However, expect massive changes to C1-C4._**

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List**_ of rewritten chapters:_****_(N/A)_**

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	2. Caldera

**_May the Fourth be with you._**

**_:) -RebelliousWaffle_**

Caldera was a lush world, rich in minerals and many other necessities. The spot that had been selected for a landing was near a large freshwater lake, and construction of a pier to get past the primarily stagnant water had been completed earlier in the day. Ezra Bridger stood on a small, grassy knoll just south of the city that had been built out of concrete and steel. From the outside, it looked primitive, but on the inside, one would find that it was actually quite the luxury living space, with multiple rooms in each housing unit. The buildings were short, however, with no skyscrapers to prevent an outside force from seeing a civilization that was relatively advanced. Two kilometers to the east, one would find a sheltered cove where there was a significant build-up of training facilities for infantry, marines, and even Jedi.

If one looked under the houses, however, one would find a gigantic, winding labyrinth of tunnels connecting the food stores and houses of the village. This labyrinth extended down several levels, connecting sick bays, cafeterias, sleeping quarters, a massive command center, a sensor room, several bathrooms, Research and Development (RD) areas, and a large hidden drydock/hangar, which was in a canyon about three kilometers away from the village with a large overhang shielding it from visual detection. It was, in short, a superbase, and it was totally hardened against any sort of sensor sweep with 'quiet' jamming devices.

Currently, there was a ship under construction in the drydock, the RSS (Resistance Star Ship) Three Thousand, a light cruiser with crazily, borderline impossibly fast engines compared to their First Order equivalents. The drydock was basically a spider's web of extending catwalks and metal stasis clamps, with four unmoving catwalks at the top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right, if one was looking from the side of the dock. Sabine Wren stood on the far left of the top right catwalk, looking over the new ship's frame.

"It's different, all right," she muttered to herself, looking at the four diagonal dagger-looking wings that doubled at engine compartments. They slanted away from the main body of the ship at a roughly forty-five degree tilt upwards and downwards, the lower wings pointing upwards and the upper wings doing the opposite, so they touched wingtips at the very ends of the wings. It was a fairly new design, almost entirely experimental, that had come from the RD department sixteen days ago. It was interesting, to see how every fighter on the planet had thrown themselves into service for the Resistance so readily, to see how if you took a planet from someone, they would go through hell to get it back.

A seesaw effect, really. Take away Lothal, and Caldera becomes a major- if not the largest- Resistance stronghold in the galaxy, completely uncharted, off the hyperlanes by a lightyear. Take Caldera away, and Lothal would probably be back in Resistance hands by the end of the galactic week. Just like a seesaw. Up… and down… and up… and down….

Lothal… and Caldera… and Lothal… and Caldera…

"Sounds like some sick philosophical osik…." Sabine muttered to herself. She heard an indignant squeak from her side.

"General Wren, I assure you, this is not-"

"Wait, wait, wait, Emma, when did you get here?" Sabine asked, recognizing her technological liaison when she saw her. Emma McCulloch was a human female, both physically strong and intelligent, who was a former AFC trooper with a liking for the explosive finish. She and Sabine had, naturally, become fast friends. She had long black hair that she tied back in a loose ponytail that was dyed green, with roughly-medium-to-small-size breasts that she wore a sports bra to, for lack of a better word, compact, and also wore a black camouflage jacket in colder environments. She was also rather short, but underestimating her could be fatal, as several condescending males had found out. Seven of them had tried to force themselves on her once. One of them survived, but got out with a broken neck, broken ribs, fractured jaw, fractured left tibia, and some pretty severe brain damage. The other six were all dead by the end of the week, most of them from injuries sustained in the fight.

Emma felt terrible about it, so she was… touchy… around the topic.

"About three seconds ago. You were muttering to yourself about something."

"I was? Huh. Anyways, what were you going to tell me?"

"The Radio Detection And Ranging systems that we're installing on this craft. It'll light up our ship on enemy scanners of the same type but we'll be able to determine the type of ship, and where they're going, as well as ETA to their theoretical destination. Latest tech from the chaps down at RD. Won't do a thorough scan of a ship, and if anyone else has it they'll show up like a wildfire, but it will detect almost any type of stealthed ship that can be made."

"Impressive."

"Yeah. I know."

"Are you okay? You seem… queasy."

"I'm okay."

Sabine wasn't convinced. "Emma, I've known you for years. I can tell when you're hiding something."

"I'm not hiding anything!" Emma responded, cheeks flushing red..

"You just confirmed it. You're hiding something. It's you and Ty, isn't it?" Tyler "Ty" Lisoi was an active-duty Resistance Infiltrator operating with the Second Infiltrator Division (Whose catchphrase was rather awesome: Here and everywhere) who was currently training the newest crop of stealth enthusiasts on base. Currently, they were running a quarter-mile obstacle course. Four times. Sabine herself had trouble doing that. (Of course, she was wearing full armor- the new Infiltrators were not.)

Emma just turned on her heel and walked away, typing in the passcode given to all on-site members into a type of movement-sensing keyboard. To put it's inner workings into comprehensible terms, it worked by projecting a holographic keyboard, on which the user would type in the passcode. Then, as they did so, motion sensors would detect which key they had touched by 'seeing' the user's hand pass through with two motion sensors, one on the top and one on the side, and cross-referencing the two points to approximate the key touched. This was all done in microseconds, so naturally the developers were very proud of it. Or, they would have been, if they had made it off Lothal.

Damn Order. Killed so many that day…

But there was no sense in dwelling upon the past. It was better to look towards the future.

Like picking a captain for the Three Thousand. Sabine turned for the long, winding hallways of the inside of Caldera, with their electric lighting and durasteel walls (that you were allowed to paint!). In a lot of places you could look over the walls and you would see evidence that you were actually encouraged to paint the walls. There were intricate murals of Resistance fighters and the faceless stormtroopers of the First Order battling across destroyed landscapes, TIE fighters burning as T-70 X-Wings flew over a cheering populace, and- perhaps most touching of all- a long, unfinished painting along one wall, with blank gravestones every few inches. The first eighteen had names on them. Kilcil Braken, Julia Monevar, Chester Nez, Elena Alvarez, Ah-zhol Kex, Mikal Noama, Ingil Atarakan, Hal Mikkelson, Sopar Jacey, Tina Lin-Tsang, Maya Pierce, Cha Morro, Mari Aka, Godul Coonel, Luken Misolka, Will Honagar, Mirie Naza, and Maxim Basuda were all warriors that had fought and died a warrior's death in service of the Resistance. Those entombed on Lothal were kept elsewhere.

Eight of them- Kilcil Braken, Elena Alvarez, Ah-zhol Kex, Tina Lin-Tsang, Maya Pierce, Cha Morro, Mara Aka, and Maxim Basuda- had died under Sabine's command. She could remember each of them perfectly.

Kilcil Braken was a jokester from Corellia who believed that no situation couldn't be solved with the proper application of high explosives. He was known to say, As the power of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it cannot solve approaches zero. He had helped Sabine rig the LDC's tactics room to explode as the First Order charged the building, sending it to hell in a fiery explosion that vaporized the room, the surrounding rooms, and damaged half the building to some extent. The blast also killed anywhere from fifty to one-hundred fifty enemy troopers, and was visible from over a mile away. Naturally, being in this job had blackened his tougher clothing with debris and ash and ripped his lighter clothing to shreds. So, he wore a heavy demoman's coat and work jeans, and usually had some sort of energy shielding on hand to protect the group he was working with.

Elena Alvarez was a technician who had quite the sarcastic streak, as well as several awards from the New Republic for helping improve some of their best military vehicles. In short, she was a genius who was, like Sabine, from Mandalore. She also wore a one-way mirror as a visor that did double duty as sunglasses. (Hey, there was no anti-modification law for the AFC troopers.) With this, when in combat she wore what basically amounted to a solid durasteel plates with notches cut into it for armor.

Ah-zhol Kex was a die-hard warrior from Cerulia who was also, incidentally, Force-sensitive. He wielded some sort of crystal sword instead of a weapon as well, just to add to his speciality. He was a stealthy sun of a gun, though, who could sneak up on you, steal your blaster, your belt, and your shoes, and leave you wondering where your weapon went, why your feet are cold, and why your pants are falling down. Then he would kill you, if it was in his best interest. He wore typical Infiltrator garb, which would be a sort of stealthy-silk weave.

Tina Lin-Tsang was a cold, calculating soldier who never took shortcuts. She was also a sorceress when it came to any sort of trap, especially disabling traps. She and her husband, Maxim Basuda, had been hunters before receiving the call to action from the Rebellion and putting a quarter of a lifetime of weapons and special operations training to good use. Maxim was a lot like his wife: a dead shot, a expert hunter, and a cunning warrior. He used tiny explosive triplines to eliminate enemies, which sometimes was horrifying and sometimes hilarious, as they tended to fly through the air.

Maya Pierce (brother to David Pierce, a fighter pilot with Light Wing) was a beautiful brunette who was also an excellent infiltrator, due in part to her being…. rubenesque. She did seem to have a talent for drawing soldiers away from their posts, either with sound or sight. She was also deadly with a blade. Or a staff. Or really anything close-quarters. Oh, she was a master martial artist, as well- deadly with anything in her hands, including the hands themselves.

Cha Morro was a experienced warrior from Honoghr, the birthplace of the Noghri. They were scary, to put it simply, with a talent for killing from the shadows. No one knew much about him. When on combat missions (actually, when anywhere at all) he wore a dark green poncho as a camouflage, as well as a metal headband that he dulled with soot and ash to camouflage. The reason he wore a dark green poncho, as opposed to a black one, was because black was actually too dark- it created too deep a shadow. Dark green created a less-dark shadow and blended better with the dark night. The Empire had tried to conceal that knowledge. It didn't work. They thought they were the only ones with stealth units working in the shadows. How wrong they were, as they found out when some Infiltrators assassinated one of their Moffs.

And finally, Mara Aka was Maya Pierce's best friend. They were alike it a lot of ways, both physically and mentally. Mara, unlike her friend, was a cool-headed sniper who was an expert at hitting heads at long range. Many a time, members of a team had come upon a spot where there were three or four fried First Order guards. She wore civilian clothes when off-duty, but full sniper gear when on duty. Ghillie suit, camo, everything.

All of them had died under Sabine's command. In most cases, the team had been ambushed by First Order forces as they were moving to exfil.

She still remembered them.

But there was no time for reflection now. The Three Thousand needed a captain, and Sabine knew where to find one. Passing the Intelligence HQ (where someone had scrawled, "In God we trust, all others we monitor") and the Cybersecurity Division, where someone had painted "9ec4c12949a4f31474f299058ce2b22a," or "Our computers will destroy your computers," all the way down to the Marine barracks of the First Marines, otherwise known as the "Pathlighters." This nickname had been given to them after they had performed a rather crazy operation a few years after the formation of the New Republic, where they had landed to create a beachhead for a larger New Republic force. The chosen beachhead for the force was alive with enemies, though, so they had used flares to say (in code as well) Land at Sector 17-Beta-Echo-8-Sierra, which was a relatively clear field with meager defenses. Since then, they had gained a reputation for creative, effective responses to difficult situations, as well as come up with the unofficial motto of "We Will" and the official motto of "Volens Et Potens," or Willing and Able in some obscure, ancient language.

That they were.

Rows of bunk beds ran down the sides of the room. In the far corner, there were several soldiers and two lieutenants playing cards. Technically, gambling was not allowed, but as long as no one gambled with money, the rule was generally flaunted. (Hera would occasionally punish someone if they were too obvious, but… she was Hera.)

"Hey, do you soldiers knew where Keset is?" Sabine asked. Keset Iwagara was a Marine Captain who had taken control of his troop transport during an ambush after his pilot died and managed (somehow) to get his platoon out of the kill zone during Lothal's chaotic evacuation.

The general response was no, but one of the lieutenants pointed Sabine topside to the landing pad near the village, where Keset was supposed to be bringing in a cache of supplies.

Sabine began the hike to the surface, walking along the brightly-lit hallways of the base until she reached a turbolift that took her to near the surface. Then, she walked through the hidden door that led to the surface and walked out of the door, tracing her hand over a delicate inscription on the wall.

The Gallofree transport was just touching down as Sabine exited the hut, it's tiny maneuvering thrusters expertly angling the ship as it deployed it's massive landing gear and settled onto the cleared 'landing' area.

Mira approached Sabine from behind her. "Hey, mom?"

"Yes?" Sabine said, without turning.

"Is that the supply run that Keset was on?"

"Yes. It is. Although I still don't think you're going to get a Suten for your birthday." A Suten was a small bird, similar to a colorful songbird.

"Eh, it was a bit of a... desperate gambit. I think that's the word?"

"Probably not."

"Yeah."

The hold of the Gallofree opened up with the metallic hiss of escaping pressure and dropped to the ground slowly. A team of soldiers began ferrying cargo out of the hold, and Sabine and Mira entered said hold to make their way to the cockpit of the (relatively) small craft. Crates were stacked around the hold and the two girls picked their way through the cockpit, following a winding path.

Keset and Mira walked into each other as they rounded the corner. Both fell backwards.

"Oh! Mira! Hey," Keset said, awkwardly. Both of them were red with embarrassment.

"Hi, Keset," she said, with maybe a bit of longing in her tone. Sabine groaned inwardly. This was exactly what had happened with her and Ezra, where they both tiptoed around the topic of romantics without either of them acknowledging their feelings for each other. I'll let this ride for another month, at most, she thought.

"Hello, Captain," Sabine said evenly.

"General?" Keset responded. "I'm a Sergeant."

"Not anymore. Report to the drydock at 1200 hours tomorrow for your new assignment. I understand you have an affinity for flying?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then your new job should be perfect. I'll let you select your crew."

Sabine turned on her heel and walked away. Keset looked to Mira and let out a long breath. "Your mom is one scary person."

"Oh, you should see her fighting. You were a Marine, right?"

"Yes."

"Not an AFC trooper?"

"No."

"Have you seen an AFC trooper fighting?"

"Yes. They're terrifying."

"Now imagine them hitting almost every shot while being super hard to hit and throwing explosives all around. And you've got a basic idea of my mom."

"Really? She doesn't seem like she goes on the front lines a lot."

"There haven't been any major battles, either. You just wait and you'll see how terrifying my parents can be."

"Oh? I take it your dad is also quite the warrior?"

"One word. Jedi."

"... Ah. So… um, do you want to join my crew?" Keset asked awkwardly.

"Yeah. Sure," Mira responded, maybe just a wee bit hesitantly.

Ezra looked over the Force-Sensitive warriors training in one of the larger gyms. They were sparring each other with practice sabers, which were really just vibroblades with the edges dulled. It was possible to kill someone with one, but it was extremely difficult. So Ezra had guessed, and a few friends of his confirmed, that it was an ideal practice weapon for training a new generation of Force-Sensitive warriors. (Not necessarily Jedi, though.)

As he looked over the yard, he saw several instructors moving among the students, correcting a movement here, removing a movement there, and generally fine-tuning the students into proper warriors. These ones were Jedi. Or, at least, they were in a physical sense; most of them had been Jedi before the Order fell, and those remaining were Apprentices they had trained on Lothal that had graduated to Jedi Knight.

He hated to admit it, but he only had the slightest idea of what he was doing. His training with Kanan had been comprehensive but more action-reaction-based, and Ahsoka had helped him at first but had disappeared since.

A slight tingly feeling came onto his shoulder. Ezra turned his head to find a bearded man's ghost with something between a samurai bun and a ponytail, putting one hand on his shoulder.

"Still somewhere between death and life?" Ezra asked. Kanan smirked.

"No. There is no death or life. Only the Force, my young-ish Padawan."

Ezra snorted derisively. He was no longer young by almost any terms, being fifty-six, although he looked to be about thirty-five. He wore a orange undershirt with a forest camouflage jacket, currently unzipped, and combat jeans, also in woodland camo, which both served to place his age around the general age of soldiers he led- 20 to 35. "I made it to Master, old man. I have my own Padawan."

"Oh, I am aware, Padawan," Kanan said.

"I'd punch your shoulder, but…"

"Incorporeal."

"Yeah."

Kanan leaned on the railing that overlooked the practice yard. "You're doing a good job."

Ezra laughed ruefully. "I'm not sure we can say that yet. I haven't tried taking them into an actual battle yet."

"Your Jedi did well on Lothal."

"We lost."

It was silent for a moment. Kanan spoke next. "Did Sabine ever tell you about why the Rebellion chose the Starbird as their symbol?"

"No. Why?"

"I think you'd benefit from hearing it. The Starbird is a mythical, immortal creature. Well, not immortal, exactly. You can kill one. But, whenever a Starbird dies, it's reborn from its own ashes, stronger than before.

"That's why it was chosen as the Rebellion's symbol, among other reasons. The first reason, for some reason, is it's the 'Marek family crest' which I have no clue what that's about but I suppose it's important."

"An immortal bird… that's the craziest, most inspiring thing I've heard all day," Ezra mused.

"You've talked to thirteen people about strategy, supplies, and troop numbers/dispositions," Kanan responded flatly. "And to Mira, about her new ship."

"The Stormwhite? Yeah, I figured, she made it to Corporal, she can have her own ship."

"You had a hard time convincing Sabine."

"Do you stalk me as I go about my day?"

"Pretty much."

"Why do you have to be a ghost?"

"Because if I wasn't, you would slap me."

"So you've seen through my skillful verbal gymnastics."

"More like verbal balancing beam."

"Ow."

"Suck it up, buttercup. Now, about the Stormwhite. Do you consider it strange that it's not actually going to have any white on it?"

"Actually, I don't really care. It's her ship, and I'm not going to control that."

"You said the same thing when I asked you about her getting a tattoo."

"A: It's her body. I have no control over her life, which means her body by extension. B: Sabine has tattoos all over her left side, from her waist to her shoulder."

"Touche. Although, Sabine got hers as a 'kriff you' gesture to Skystrike."

"And Sabine would prefer if her husband had a Listen check worth ten credits," a voice said from behind. Ezra turned to find Sabine standing a meter away, with her helmet by her side.

"You've been playing Dungeons and Dragons again, haven't you?"

"So sorry, darling," Sabine cooed, kissing Ezra lightly. Kanan took a small bit of satisfaction at Ezra and Sabine's marriage, seeing it as something between the 'End Result' of his and Hera's efforts and a very heavy dose of 'Finally!'

Mentally, he compared and contrasted the crew from before and after the Galactic Civil War. Ezra and Sabine were taller and more open about their relationships, but both were just as fit (if not more) and, while neither looked like they were in their teens, neither looked fifty-five or fifty-seven.

Hera was 65 and looked about forty-nine. She also looked perpetually stressed, but that was to be expected- she was the driving force behind the Calderan Resistance, as it was called. She no longer flew much (although she still could kick any pilot's butt in a dogfight) but she had picked up several skills required of a Resistance leader; that is, leadership, public speaking, and supply frugality.

Zeb had gone back to live on Lira San, and was currently defending the world via a lot of gravity wells, and black holes. To explain that further, you cannot go into hyperspace if there is an active gravity well. So, therefore you cannot get to Lira San with a Gravity Well generator online. All contact had been lost since about a month ago.

And Kanan himself was dead. That was something, right?

Ezra decided to change tack. "How's Mira?"

"Having fun with her friends, I assume. I'm not sure."

"Well, as long as she isn't dogfighting in the Stormwhite, I'm sure she's okay."

Mira was okay. Ish.

"Piss off! I owe you nothing!"

"C'mon, baby. I'll owe you one!"

"Right. And that's worth how much? Ah, yes- nothing. Go kriff yourself."

"Hey now…"

"Aww, did the big mean Mandalorian hurt your feelings? Grow up."

The person Mira was arguing with was Lukas Duders, a twenty-year-old half-Mandalorian that seemed to think this made him equal to every other Mandalorian on base, Mira and Sabine included, even though he was horribly incompetent. His father, hoping to instill some sort of motivation inside of him, had given him a squad of droids to command, all of which were now basically a hit squad that he loosed on people who rejected him. They had all been painted black, instead of the standard camouflage color.

Sadly, he also had a rather large crush on Mira that was entirely one-sided.

"I'm older than you."

"Really? I couldn't tell by your behavior."

Mira turned on one foot, a mass of long, midnight-blue hair whirling around her head with the occasional flash of green, as she had dyed the ends of her hair seaweed green. It merged with the rest of her hair slowly. Mira had grown from a small girl with dreams of a normal life into a strong young lady who had come to terms with her life being chaotic and just generally strange beyond belief. She usually wore some sort of tank top in varying colors and a camouflage solid cardigan over that, and combat jeans in digital black camouflage. "Now, if you'll stop wondering what my bra size is, I have places to be."

"Now, babe, c'mon, don't talk like that-"

Mira bounced off of one foot and hammered Lukas with two mid-air sidekicks, leaning backwards and throwing her leg out to the side of her body as she flew through the air hitting with the blade of her foot. She switched from one leg to the other as she hammered the blade of her foot into Lukas's chest. Lukas crumpled like a rag doll to the ground, winded and unable to speak, but with nothing broken.

"Oh, thank god, you finally shut up," Mira mumbled to herself. "Now if only I could tie you up…"

She scouted around the small room for some sort of tape or rope. It seemed to be a small storage closet that had been converted into a hideout/den. It reeked of primer and worse. How Lukas tolerated it, she didn't and would never know. Eventually, she found some cable ties and tied Lukas's hands behind his back and tied his feet together.

"Mira! Let me go!" Lukas said, enraged. Mira kicked him in the side instead.

"Look, Lukas, there is nothing stopping me from shooting you in the head right now and leaving your body to rot, and believe me I would love nothing more than to do so. So if you want to live, I suggest you shut up now." To emphasise her point, Mira casually placed a blaster against Lukas's skull.

Lukas shut up.

"Good. Now, I'm going to leave. You are going to stay quiet for the next ten minutes. Then you can free yourself."

Lukas glared and made several enraged noises, but did not open his mouth, to his credit. Mira twirled her blaster and placed it back in it's holster before exiting the room. Briefly, she looked around, gaining her bearings. She recognized the place almost immediately. It was the Starfighter Corps barrack's southern area, in a back alleyway. Truly an undesirable place, but she did know a few people nearby. Walking casually out of the alleyway, she was immediately met by Thane Kyrell, a tall, pale-skinned X-Wing ace pilot who flew with the remnants of Light and Monarch Squadron. 53 years old but looking thirty-six, Thane had reddish-blonde hair and blue eyes. He was currently wearing a orange flight suit with a white survival vest, just like the other pilots did. It was more than likely' that he had just come off of a combat flight, as the nearby systems did need to have some covert surveillance so the Resistance could tell what was heading to their base.

"Ah. Hello, Mira," Thane said. Mira nodded acknowledgement. "Why are you here?" Thane asked next.

"Some prick dragged me here."

"Lukas?"

"Jackpot."

"Sorry. Please tell me you were able to show him something."

"Well, I kicked him and tied his hands behind his back. Is that something?"

"It's enough."

Thane continued on, going to the apartment that had been set aside for him and Ciena Ree, his wife. Ciena, and old Imperial Captain that Thane had forcibly rescued from a crashing Star Destroyer on Jakku, was also a ace X-Wing pilot that had flown in battle against several Imperial Remnants and piloted a XT-75 during the Evacuation of Lothal. (Incidentally, she was one of the three pilots who had flown the experimental (or X)T-75). Currently, her ship, the Looking Glass, was under repairs. The primary navigation had shorted out and taken the weapon systems with it. The bigger problem was a bug had been found that made the weapon systems overheat immediately if they were fired. Needless to say, that was a problem.

Currently, she was sitting at home, waiting for Thane with their six-year-old son, Jackson Kyrell. Ciena laced her fingers together, watching as Jackson ran around the house, his energy almost boundless. The sharp corners of furniture had long been rounded off so Jackson could not cut himself on them, but he was not big enough to be trusted to stay by himself while his parents went on patrol.

Usually, when patrols were increased and the base was brought to a state of combat-readiness, someone would have to watch over Jackson. There was fierce competition for who would get this job, usually, and the winner tended to be one of the teenage civilians that had evacuated Lothal in time. One was coming over in a few hours so Thane and Ciena could head for the Command Center, to discuss fighter deployments on the new ship that would be launched. Thane was supposedly heading there already. A few people had already arrived, sitting in the rows of seats that had been set up.

Keset's promotion wasn't an extravagant affair. He was given two silver bars to wear on his dress uniform and a Captain's emblem to wear on his shoulder for his actual gear.

There was a small ceremony, where Hera pinned the bars on Keset's lapel and he was given a little paper that said that he was now the official captain of the RSS Three Thousand. Then he bowed to Hera, Ezra, and Sabine, before leaving the Command Center, where there were multiple screens showing scans from all around real space and the nearest hyperlanes. In the center, there was a holotable which could display anything from technical readouts of enemy ships to a real-time map of a battlefield in blue light.

Mira was waiting at the drydock where the Three Thousand sat, almost completed but still requiring the final details to make the ship whole. Currently, the technicians were having some problems with the hyperwave particle accelerating device (known by everyone without an engineering degree in Starship Design as a hyperdrive) and the chaps at RD were trying to help them out.

"Hello, Mira," Keset said.

"Hi," Mira responded. "Figured you'd want a picture to… you know… savor the moment?"

"Um… sure," Keset responded. "You want to join in?"

"I dunno. Do you want me there?"

"Yeah."

The two posed in front of the nearly-completed ship. Mira held up a encouraging "V for Victory" sign as the camera flashed, preserving the moment forever.

"Could you send that to me?" Mira asked.

"Yeah, sure," Keset responded. "So, about my crew… I was thinking you could be my first mate?"

Mira glanced at him suspiciously. "You're going to have multiple?"

"Well, yeah. There are, like, second and third mate, right?"

"No!"

"I'm pretty sure there are. It's a rank, right?"

"A… rank?"

"Yeah! Like, Captain, Commander, and so on…"

"...I thought you were talking about marriage."

"What? Oh, gods no!" Keset said. He managed to keep a straight face for most of this, before he and Mira almost collapsed in laughter.


	3. Launch Point Oh-One

**_"_****_Let's rise before we turn back to dust,_** **_and_** **_fight the force that unraveled us."_**

* * *

Hera stood next to Ty Lisoi, a veteran Infiltrator. Several new Infiltrators had been placed into a pitch-dark room and had to complete a CQC (Close Quarters Combat) drill against another team of Infiltrators. Sabine and Ty stood in a control room, controlling a night-vision drone to spy on the fighters.

"You think this is a little much? I doubt an Imperial security force will kill the lights just to secure an area from a possible infiltration," Hera said. Ty looked at her.

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am?"

"Permission granted."

"This exercise isn't meant to be realistic."

"Then what does it accomplish? Apologies for being blunt."

"It forces you to use all your senses. Your eyes can deceive you, and all too often you rely too much on them. If you use all your senses, it is a lot harder to fool you. And, of course, if you are robbed of your vision, all your other senses sharpen- so if you lose your vision as an Infiltrator, you are still just as deadly."

"So, in essence, you do this to force new recruits into combat readiness?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that a bit too much… pressure?"

"Pressure makes diamonds, General."

"I see. Well, this does work, so… carry on."

"Glad to receive permission to continue doing my job, ma'am," Ty said flatly, but with a smile. Then he continued, "Besides, if you always train for the worst case scenario, you'll never be surprised when it happens."

"And, of course, if your attack is going well…" Hera began.

"You've walked into an ambush," Ty finished, with a grin. He turned his attention back to the monitoring drone, watching as five 'green' infiltrators snuck up behind two older, veteran infiltrators. The veteran infiltrators suddenly tensed and turned around without so much as a whisper, then fanned out to the left and right. The five green infiltrators moved straight past, before the first veteran infiltrator whistled quietly, and the two veteran infiltrators pounced, trying to wipe the unit out totally.

The newer infiltrators managed to fight back, as the whistle had alerted them, but the two infiltrators that made contact with the veterans were off-balance and went down quickly. Then, the other 3 green infiltrators made contact with the veterans. One fell quickly, and one vet went down, but the green infiltrator units were torn apart after the veteran infiltrator gained some distance before lashing out with a blazing fast series of punches and kicks.

"Impressive," Ty muttered, before calling the exercise to an end. An announcement was played over the loudspeakers.

"All Orange Team operators eliminated. Blue Team has won the exercise."

* * *

The RSS _Three Thousand_ stood in the drydock, awaiting it's captain before it became a full-fledged starship. The large engines mounted on the ship had been reworked and now were operating at full capacity. The sleek lines of the ship looked rather pleasing to the eye, but were also functional, and had several scanner-scrambling materials inside, which were useful for sneaking around.

Keset walked onto the ship, making his way to the bridge easily. The entire command crew saluted as he entered. "At ease. Now, let's get this show on the road."

The bridge instantly burst into activity, with reports on engine operating capacity, weapons systems, hull integrity, and the like.

"All systems operating at 100%, Captain," Mira said, from her position next to Keset. "Stasis clamps disengaging in three seconds."

"All hands, prepare for launch. Repeat, all hands, prepare for launch," came over the loudspeakers on the ship. The stasis clamps did in fact disengage from the ship, and it rocketed out of the canyon, it's massive engines propelling it upwards at a neckbraking pace. If not for the inertia dampeners and some serious artificial gravity wizardry, everyone on the ship would have been dead within seconds.

The _Three Thousand_ cleared the stratosphere in what seemed like milliseconds, and ascended into space proper, where it hovered for a few minutes like a satellite as contact was established with the base below. The stars around twinkled like millions of little lights, each a possible mission.

Down on the surface, the Command Center's recycled air was thick with tangible tension as someone turned on a transmitter, and said with a clear voice, "RSS _Three Thousand_, this is Caldera Control. Anyone up there?"

There was a few seconds of quiet, before this: "You're missing quite the view, Caldera Control."

A audible sigh of relief came from the assembled officers, just before Hera took the momentum.

"Alright people, our fancy new ship isn't going to go anywhere if we don't give it something to do!"

The placid command center almost instantly became a beehive of activity, with officers looking over other orderlies that operated long-range scanners, sensor beacons, comms with outlying cells that they had established contact with, reports being made, information passing hands, messages coming in and out, troop logs being updated. Almost immediately, an alert came over to one comms officer.

"Ma'am? You may want to check this," he called out. Hera, with the commander's talent of being able to hear anyone call for her attention from anywhere within ten meters, began her trek over, dodging between the many people bustling about. She got over to the officer in very little time.

"Yes?"

"I'm getting a beacon from D'Qar. Seems like they're… evacuating?"

"Send the _Three Thousand_ to investigate. Immediately."

"Ma'am, D'qar is almost twelve systems away. We're probably not going to be able to get there in time."

"You never know. Send them."

"Yes, ma'am. RSS _Three Thousand_, we're getting an alert from D'qar Base; looks like an evacuation. Please investigate, over."

"Already on our way, Caldera Base. Save us a caf for when we get back."

"_Three Thousand_ has been sent, General," the officer responded. "Now we wait."

"As always. Update me when you get a call back."

Hera turned on her heel and left, seeking out Sabine for a discussion on whether or not to contact Krownest and Mandalore, seeing as they were both under First Order control. Little did she know, Sabine was already in contact with her mother, who was attempting to galvanize the rest of Mandalore into dedicating themselves to the war effort. Was it going well? It was hard to tell, as none of the Mandalorian clan leaders wanted to leave themselves open to another devastating war, and they didn't want to be a target of Starkiller Base (even though it had been destroyed). However, Starkiller Base was what was really galvanizing Mandalore into an alliance. It was ironic, really.

On the way, she stopped by the training fields, where Ezra was organizing several sparring matches with a few Jedi-in-training- or rather, one match. The ten trainees surrounded Ezra in a circle and attacked him at once with training sabers. Against anyone less than Ezra (or possibly Sabine) it would be a massacre.

But Ezra had years of experience against better opponents. His green blade flashed in a circle, Form Three, never wavering, as he dismantled attacks from all directions. One foot lashed out, knocking a trainee down onto the ground. He parried two attacks from the same person and Force-pushed them backwards about a meter. A third attacker, from behind, swung their lightsaber in a horizontal attack. Their lightsaber deactivated and was taken from their hands, flying into Ezra's, who thrust it at their chest, then spun and took out another attacker. One blade blocked an attack, the other wiped out the leg of an attacker and finished them off.

Hera shook her head at the one-sided confrontation and left as Ezra took care of another and another with ease, then prepared to explain how he had won so easily.

Sabine stood in the comms center, in the private call center, speaking with her mother. The soundproof box was purely used for High Command staff. Sabine was part of it- along with Hera, Ezra, and a few others. The gunmetal-grey walls were swept for bugs every day.

"Daughter, I am fully aware of the time limits that are being imposed on us, but converting a planet full of people that naturally disagree with each other is fairly difficult," Ursa Wren explained in a remarkably patient tone.

"And I am fully aware that it is a difficult undertaking. Now please, as soon as you can, sway Bo-Katan. She's got grip over Mand'alor as his advisor, so she's got a good grip on the clans."

"I am aware, daughter, but she won't make a decision without the consent of the clans."

"Oh for kark's sake," Sabine sighed, shaking her short blue strands of hair. "Give me her comm frequency, I'll call her myself."

"Of course. Uploading it now. Bye, daughter."

"Goodbye, mother," Sabine said. She ended the comm call and began keying up Bo-Katan as Hera found her.

"Sabine. Have you found out anything about Mandalore or Krownest?"

"Already made contact with my mom. She personally had wiped Krownest's location from galactic records, just in case something like this happened."

Hera gave a low whistle. "Your mother is… impressive."

"I know," Sabine said. Ezra had said something similar, once, adding on something cheesy about it being in her DNA. The line... It reminded her of the Duchess. The pain of rejection.

No time to think on that. Gotta move forward.

Boots on the ground, Sabine.

"So, any other news, Hera?"

"None whatsoever."

"I suppose that's a good thing. Anyways, I hope you succeed in your negotiations… both for me, and the Resistance."

"Always the realist, aren't you, Hera? I've got it well in hand."

"Mm. Seems like it. Anyways, you know when Ezra is free?"

"Half an hour. He's overseeing Jedi training with Kanan, naturally. It really is kinda spooky how close the two are, despite Kanan being, well, dead."

"Yeah. But I suppose they say the same about us," Hera said jokingly. She then went to find Ezra, probably to ask him about troop numbers or something along those lines. Hera always needed information.

Sabine keyed in the frequency of Bo-Katan, her slightly-calloused hands flying across the keys with the ease only granted by hours of necessary-but-involuntary practice. Her gloves, tucked into a pouch by her waist, were covered in nail polish on the inside- Sabine hadn't realized yet, but the purple nail polish she used needed to dry. The purple nails were kept just above the keyboard, also with the ease of long practice.

One violet finger hit the enter key, and five minutes later, Bo-Katan was on the comm, with disheveled hair and half-straight armor.

"Sabine Wren?"

"Did I interrupt something, Countess?" Sabine said coyly, reminding herself that Bo-Katan was no longer Mand'alor. That title now belonged to Boba Fett, who had led Mandalore and her clans through many battles after the Battle of Endor.

"Get to the point, Wren."

"Isn't Boba married? Oh, no, he was divorced, wasn't he? So you're his rebound. Wonder if he does love you…"

"It's Fenn Rau. Now get to the karking point," Bo-Katan said irritably, her face screwed up with rage.

"Okay, okay! How far along are you to allying yourselves with the Resistance?"

Countess Kryze visibly relaxed and sat back. "Clan Wren is ready and willing. Clan Oyno is pretty much ready, save for a few bits. Clan Kryze is split- but if we can get Fett on our side, we can sway them. Everyone else is split pretty much down the middle, but again, if Mand'alor goes one way or another, they'll unite and go with him. There will be a few hard-liners, but not many- I'd say, eighty-six to nintey-seven will go with us, with 14 to 3 percent staying."

"That's good, but how long until we get Boba over to our side?"

"Not very. He dislikes the First Order more than the New Republic, and conditions in Sundari are extremely volatile at the moment, what with the First Order occupation and all. Any other disliked moves and Mandalore will riot."

"Full-scale, planetwide?"

"Yes. We can start sneaking weapons in to help out with the riots, maybe start a few revolts, small-scale, to help set some tinder into a proper matchbox."

"You really like your metaphors, don't you?" Sabine playfully said, taking a coin out of her pocket and spinning it in between her fingers.

"Oh hush," Bo-Katan responded, ending the comm call, before a broad frequency on a Resistance channel came through, asking for help on Crait.

"This is the D'qar Resistance. We have been trapped on Crait and the First Order is closing in fast. Any help would be appreciated."

Sabine didn't hear it- she was already walking away, boots striking the durasteel floor, the call lost in the hubbub of voices.

* * *

_Crait_.

Salt world. Old Rebel stronghold. That was all the official records knew. If you had been around during the years of the Galactic Civil War, you would know that someone was always there. Often, it was a medical outpost- for battalions to grieve their losses, treat their wounds, and await reinforcements. The 141st Battalion, which Sabine had fought alongside during a successful defense of Lothal against an Imperial warlord, had rested there, as had the 787th Battalion and the 645th, the so-called Eagles of Mon Cala.

Mira had never seen it before, but from the viewscreen on her console it just looked… undesirable.

She was in her quarters, which had been merged with the captain's quarters early in the making of the ship- likely to conserve space, but who knows. Hera, Ezra, and Sabine all had a deft hand in both the design of the ship and the selection of the crewmembers, and had ways of making you stay quiet about their touch (mostly promises and orders, but credits also worked).

Said quarters were not the most… posh. In fact, although calling them spartan was not even remotely close to the truth, they were relatively meager in comparison to some other flagships. The beds had a sheet and a cover, and were tucked into the wall, much like the _Millenium Falcon_. They had comfortable, but not even close to resort-grade, mattresses. The holoterminal was high-quality, but not designed for non-military use, and it showed in the rough edges and boxy look, as well as the dull grey. The closet was for holding clothing that was to be used in battle or on-deck, not your bridal dress your great-great grandmother passed down. The mirror was for putting on cammo-paint. The lockboxes were for storage of firearms and small items of personal value, like earrings or a medal, no bigger than a half-meter. The floor was standard durasteel, grey in color, lukewarm or cold to the touch, and designed for resilience against an attack. The refresher was there for one reason and one reason only- personal hygiene. Privacy was a secondary concern, although one could darken the plasteel with a wave of a hand to offer some sort of personal space. There were barely any decorations, in fact- a single red line ran across the middle of one wall, in between the beds, and there was a vidscreen on the opposite wall, slightly inside of it, that gave almost nothing to the room.

In all, the room would need an overhaul before it could be called anything more than a dwelling.

Mira didn't really mind all that much. She had been through worse, such as during the evacuation of Lothal. As long as there were beds not made of rock, she was okay.

Turning her attention back to the viewscreen on the terminal, she began perusing the details of the world. Rebellion-era defenses were tough, but mostly designed for infantry. At the height of its power, it had a squad of T-4B tanks for defense, but those had been removed. Now, all that was left was an extensive tunnel network- good, but not what was needed- and some old gun emplacements. Not good.

_Attention all crewmembers, preparing to exit hyperspace in_ _one minute. Please_ _report to your station_.

The voice just barely reached Mira's ears, but she heard it and hopped up from the chair. Her position was on the bridge, watching viewscreens for enemy contact, making sure others were doing their job, and admiring the view.

The drop from hyperspace, as usual, was unpleasant, but very much tolerable. The blue and white of lightspeed faded away into….

Holy…

Karking…

Mother of….

Haran…

They had ended up in a ship graveyard. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris floated around. Ruined Star Destroyers. First Order ones, too, with their oversized guns and antimatter reactor cores, cut into two or even three pieces.. And… something. Far too big to be a Star Destroyer, or a planetary defense platform. It looked like a dreadnaught. But it looked half complete, like there was a- wait, no, there it was. The other 'wing' was floating in space about two hundred kilometers away, on the opposite side of the debris field. Jet black, just like the other half, it could easily be mistaken for its own ship, it's size was so great.

The relatively tiny _Three Thousand_ slipped by the field under half power so as to allow the crew to admire the field of destruction. It was utterly captivating. There was almost no weapon in the galaxy that could cause this much destruction.

Barely anything registered on the scanners, except for, unusually, strong hyperwave particle residue. This was abnormal because hyperdrives rarely 'cracked open' unless they hit something else, such as a ship or asteroid.

And then it dawned on the crew simultaneously, like the rising sun.

Something, or someone, had rammed the giant flagship, the dreadnaught-like thing that simply boggled the mind with sheer size alone- from hyperspace.

And just like that, the term was coined: Hyperspace Ramming. Certain destruction for ships, from the smallest to the largest. Death, painful and guaranteed, for everyone involved.

"Good haran," Mira cursed under her breath. The wasteland sprawled for kilometers in every direction. The ship jerked to the side to avoid a wasted part of a Star Destroyer, traveling at high speed through the area.

It was like navigating a minefield. Debris could slam into the ship, wrenching grey durasteel and killing crew that couldn't be replaced. Everyone on the bridge and possibly the entire crew held collective breaths as they flew between drops of metal and plasteel, feeling like something akin to a mosquito- a weak, tiny bug, merely an irritant to the much larger Star Destroyers, flying over a battlefield, over the broken corpses of soldiers fallen.

They exited the debris field and instantly their sensors picked up a small, almost invisible contact, shaded against the debris field. Keset called to set a course for the area, where one could just barely see a grey-white flash as a ship darted between the debris. Clearly, it was a ship of great speed.

Not as fast as the _Three Thousand_, though.

They gave chase. Engines roaring in the vacuum of space, they began running down the mystery ship. They wove in between shards of durasteel and wrecked turbolasers, where just a slight misstep would cause death to the pilot, the copilot, and anyone on board.

The _Three Thousand_ began to gain ground quickly, but the other ship was smaller and more maneuverable. It's blazingly blue engines roared as it threaded the needle around objects. Two Destroyer halves converged in a tight pincer going vertical. The mysterious ship raced towards it at close to its maximum speed.

Then it flipped on its side and rocketed through the tiny gap. The _Three_ _Thousand_ screeched to a halt just in front of the debris.

The crew was silent for about twenty seconds.

No one spoke.

Then, from Mira-

"There are about fifteen ships that could pull that off in this galaxy, but only one of them is a YT-1300 Light Freighter. The _Millenium Falcon_."

A general mumble ran around, one of agreement and awe. An idea began to form in Keset's mind.

"Comms. Send a direct communication to the _Falcon's_ frequency. Identify us, give them the coordinates of Caldera. Tell them to return with us."

"Copy that, sir," the Comms officer, Leon, said. "Crew of the _Millenium Falcon_, this is the Resistance Military Ship Three Thousand. We are transmitting coordinates to a safe world. Please follow us back."

Mira looked up from her station and nodded, smiling. "That's smart."

The bridge crew made a general sound of agreement. Leon tagged on, "I certainly never would have thought of it."

* * *

Kilometers away, aboard the _Falcon_, the few crewmembers in the cockpit looked to the holoterminal as it began to beep, heralding the incoming message.

* * *

The crew of the Three Thousand began exiting the debris field. The ruins were massive and many, but they wove through just fine. The few TIE Fighters remaining flew in units, as they were taught, and were smart enough to not harass a anti-fighter ship.

The edge of the debris field was fast approaching and safe, and they rocketed clear, just barely avoiding a large electrical storm.

"And now we wait," Keset said, sitting back in the captain's chair.

Within ten minutes, the _Falcon_ emerged from the debris field and jumped into hyperspace.

"Looks like they're going somewhere," Keset said. "Let's head back to Caldera."


	4. The Theft At Mandalore

_"From__ now on, you'll do as I tell you. Okay?"_

* * *

The RMS _Three Thousand_ was apparently faster than the Millenium Falcon. If Han had been alive, he likely would be enraged.

The news had been passed to Hera through Leia Organa, after having been confirmed by Rey a few weeks ago. Han Solo was dead- killed by his own son. It hit everyone hard, but the parents the hardest. Imagine a best friend or loved one, and imagine this situation, then multiply that by six, such was the pain.

But the pain was abolished almost instantly by General Organa's take-charge attitude.

As soon as she stepped into the command center, everyone knew who was in charge. She took in information at an astounding pace, filing away troop count, morale, ship count, ship type, classifications, sensor pick-ups, contact with other cells, and even more things that few people could list in entirety. Allies were contacted, and in particular, Krownest was commed.

Within minutes of Leia getting on the comm unit, the Three Thousand was sent to collect a group of Wren Super Commandos. Keset saw the writing on the wall- his ship was destined to always be the busiest.

In the drydock, construction had just begun on a second _Sprinter-class_ corvette. The distinctive engine web was already obvious. It had been ordered a few hours previously by Hera, who was now considering making a second drydock for additional production.

The landing pads had also recently been overhauled, so more than a few T-70 X-Wings had returned and landed, having been picked up on the way. There were also two captured TIE Special Forces fighters, captured by Zay Versio, who had informed the command chain of the death of Iden and Del Versio. Shriv, the last member of Inferno Squad, had also come, piloting the other fighter.

The two TIEs looked remarkably out of place.

In all, the biggest ship currently fielded by the Resistance was a EF76 Nebulon-B escort frigate.

Plans were underway to change that.

Sabine and Mira, the mother-daughter hell-raising duo themselves, had taken Emma and gone on a supply raid to obtain a manifest of First Order shipyards that could be stolen from. So far, the list of known shipyards was depressingly short. There was Kuat, under heavy guard, Rothana, under slightly lighter guard, and not many other places. Many Rebellion-era hidden shipyards in the Outer Rim and Wild Space had survived, however- they merely had to be found again. Several had just been found by a Wild Space Resistance cell and were now undergoing an overhaul cycle, being retrofitted to allow production of T-70 and XT-75 X-Wings.

Other cells had stolen blueprints of fun new toys of destruction, such as a hyperspace tracker (Leia had bad memories of that one, but the team that discovered it destroyed the blueprint), several different weapon systems, and more destructive proton torpedoes.

All in all, it was a good day to be a Resistance fighter.

It was a good week, even.

A week had passed since the mission to Crait, and the Resistance had grown by miles. What had been a bastion of maybe twelve hundred veterans had become a haven for beyond ten thousand. Barracks after barracks were excavated and filled, all by Leia's order and Hera's reinforcement. The _Supremacy_ had fallen. Snoke had been killed and replaced with an admittedly less competent Dark Side Force user. Captain Phasma had been killed, which indirectly led to the following dialogue between two SpaceOps Marines:

"Hey, did ya hear about that KSA that was leading the Order?"

"What's KSA?"

"You know, Kinky Silver Armor. That blaster-magnet."

"Oh, yeah! What about them?"

Two retrofitted Corellian Corvettes floated in orbit, just outside of the atmosphere. They were far enough away to be just specks to the naked eye, obscured by clouds, lost in the blue of the sky. They stood watch over the airspace. These two corvettes were on guard duty for one reason and one reason only- they would be the pickup for a force of Republic Marines that was apparently flying in a heavily damaged _Sphyrna -_class corvette. Standing by for ship-to-ship transfer were a force of eight Allanar N3 light freighters. These relatively tiny ships were little known and relatively unpopular, but with the severe lack of resources, the new Rebellion was taking anything it could get.

No one said anything about that.

The fake village above the winding underground base was not a fake anymore. Resources couldn't be spared to make it look fake anymore. Now, turbolaser batteries sprouted near the newly made starport. Hangars peeked out from the hills, also under guard. A security fence ran around the most important parts. If it had been all grey and unmanned, it would have looked positively imperial- but graffiti had been an important tool in the crafting of this creation. Pro-Rebel slogans, murals, and other assorted artworks, written and drawn in bright blues, oranges, greens and yellows covered each and every piece of the walls.

The only actually camouflaged portion of the base was a secondary entrance, covered in camouflage netting and paint, neatly hidden within a cave entrance.

Many new barracks had been constructed on the surface, as well- curious semi-circular items with the flag of the unit there flying high on a flagpole mounted in the middle of the semicircle. The graffiti here was also prominent, with sayings like, eventually, empires fall like trees- we are the lumberjax!, on a SpecForce barrack, or First Order- Because the Empire wasn't genocidal enough on a detachment from the Hosnian system. There were also Special Forces (SpecForce) and Special Operations (SpecOps) barracks areas. Right next to each other. With no walls separating them.

Was it a bad idea? one might ask. One might even wonder why it was a bad idea, if these two branches were foreign ideas to them.

The answer would simply be yes, it was a very bad idea.

The reasoning behind why it was bad was relatively simple. SpecForce was made up of elite teams of highly trained individuals, all of whom were almost fanatically devoted to the Rebel cause, and operated in deep cover with rigorous planning, relying on stealth, preparation, and training to achieve their goals. They were the specialist troopers, from Marines to Infiltrators.

SpecOps… whoo, they were different. They were more akin to regular infantry in some ways. Skill and talent was commonplace, but so was cockiness, so they rarely planned out endeavors, preferring a more seat-of-the-pants style of fighting that differed heavily from the SpecForce.

That being said, neither branch allowed you to retire on health grounds until you were dead for at least two years.

Leia would later change this by direct order, but only by putting up a small wall between the two forces. And on ships, the two would still be combined. The only thing that really kept these two groups in their place was the presence of a third group that was superior to both the others, which was soon coming.

* * *

"With these men and women, I dedicate the full might of Clan Wren to the cause of the Rebellion against the First Order. May their armor be your vanguard and their blasters your reinforcements," Countess Wren decreed, with a grand tone of voice, as she spoke with Keset, Ezra, and Hera in the communications hub.

The crew of the _Three Thousand_ had received a warm welcome from Clan Wren as they touched down, with the Countess herself greeting the ship. They had been given all the soldiers the clan could spare- about 110 veterans of the Galactic Civil war, all specifically chosen for their pure, unrelenting hatred for all things Imperial. They would probably fit in perfectly with the Infiltrators, who were also specifically selected for burning hatred of all Imperial things.

The assembled members of the 110 soldiers had begun entering the ship a few hours ago, loading up specialized equipment (such as a Crusader tank, one of the deadliest models of tank in the Galaxy, for the Rebels to produce after obtaining the blueprints through reverse engineering). The crew had been helping, but in most cases, they were showing the 110 around the ship. The 124 members of the Three Thousand meant that there was more than enough space to accommodate each and every member of the Commandos.

At least half the crew would have been inside the stronghold, too, if they hadn't landed in the middle of winter, when the cold was at its worst, right before the worst snowstorm Krownest had ever seen. Biting snow fell in sheets, freezing so quickly it was a form of suicide to go outside with nothing protecting you from the cold. Several of the hexagonal landing pads had frozen over and some Kom'rk fightercraft had been half-buried. The Three Thousand had to use it's ray shields at full power to prevent against the eventuality that they might be swamped by the storm.

"We'll be returning as soon as the storm blows over," Keset reported. "It's too dangerous to take off right now."

"That's fair. Keep yourselves alive out there. Hera out." Hera's hologram disappeared from view.

"We won't let you down," Ezra said, before cutting the call himself.

"You'd better not," Ursa said quietly, before pushing herself off the table and standing up, towering over Keset. She was, as always, an intimidating woman, and the captain thought he would do well to make sure that she didn't begin to dislike him.

Luckily for him, before he could do anything stupid, she turned on her heel and walked out of the comms hub, found a passing crewmember, and asked for directions out of the ship. Keset looked up to the transparisteel window and stood at parade rest, the very picture of authority. Outside, the snowstorm looked like it was beginning to let up.

Two Kom'rk fighters flew side by side, both burned and charred with blasterfire. One of them was clearly part of Clan Kryze, with the jai'galaar (or shriek-hawk) crest clearly shown on the wings. A small smoke trail flared behind that specific craft. The other craft was far worse off- smoke openly trailed behind it, and the wings were bent and battered and burned. They landed poorly, to put it mildly- it was more of a crash landing- perhaps saved solely saved by the snowbanks into which they fell. A small SaR (Search and Rescue) squad of six. As they made their way through the snow, they had to raise their legs almost a half meter in order to step forward. One of them, who was shorter, just gave up and started wading through the snowbanks, just before the snowstorm intensified and Keset could no longer see them.

A mere minute later, the entirety of the small team was now wading through the snow, only just able to see the pointman from the view of the rearguard. They held their rifles high to prevent them from jamming with ice.

The team only just barely saw the outline of the crashed Kom'rks through the snow. A small marker appeared on the HUD within the helmet that detailed the outline of the sunken fighter, about thirty meters away.

The small team continued their trek until about ten meters away, when their scanners were close enough to mark living contacts through the snow. One pilot and one gunner in each craft. Guns were raised in an instant, long rectangular Mando'a blaster carbines.

Communicating through hand signals, the team split into two groups of three, each making their way to a different fighter. None of them spoke- no one had the time to. There was a job to do, after all.

The first team to reach their target was the team assigned to the more heavily damaged fighter. One of the members of the team took out a small tech-torch, used primarily for welding or cutting. The little flame on the end flared and sputtered before solidifying into a single, white-hot piece of heat. Torch, as he was known, applied this to the transparisteel of the cockpit, melting through, creating a hole large enough to pull someone through.

"Get them out," the leader of the team said roughly. Torch and his comrade reached down into the cockpit. Their arms wrapped around the shoulders of a man, clad in beskar'gam, heavily muscled. There was no nice way to do this. On a simple count of one, two, three! they hauled the man out of the cockpit and laid him onto the ground.

"He's banged up," Torch observed, brightly. The squad leader motioned to get the other person out as he commed Ursa Wren.

"This is Ursa Wren. Speak."

* * *

"Captain? A moment of your time, please," Leon said, saluting crisply in the doorway. "The Manda'lor wishes to speak with you."

Keset raised an eyebrow. _This is abnormal._

"Let him in, then."

"Of course," Leon responded fluidly. He stepped back and to the side. "Manda'lor, this is Captain Keset Iwagama of the RMS _Three Thousand_."

The towering figure in the doorway gave Keset pause. Manda'lor wasn't a huge, hulking figure like a Wookie, but he was tall and looked powerful, even with bandages wrapped around his legs and arms. His helmet had burn marks and scars chipping the green paint. His rangefinder was bent heavily and the vambraces had scarring on them from knives and batons. The chest armor had a trio of burn marks on the top left plate. Manda'lor's dark green leg armor had a deep gash in it. Red-stained bandages were wrapped around his shoulder and his knee.

Keset swallowed a lump in his throat and spoke. "Manda'lor, correct?"

The man shook his head as he removed his helmet, revealing a scarred face with many cuts and burns, the most notable of which ran from above his right eye down to about the end of his nose. "Dride Fett. I bring a message for Leia Organa, from Manda'lor the Hunter."

Keset nodded to Leon, who activated the holoterminal in the room. Leia's form appeared in blue light. "This is Organa."

"Mistress Organa. I'm Dride Fett. I bring a message from Manda'lor the Hunter."

Dride took out a small disk and inserted it into the table, bringing up Sundari on the table. Holographic Kom'rk and TIE Fighters dueled in the skies and troop transports landed on the ground and on Sundari's many platforms, offloading troopers into firefights with the Mandalorian Guard and Commandos.

"Six rotations ago, Mandalore came under attack from two Resurgent-class Star Destroyer. Twenty-four troop transports were deployed to take Sundari. When that failed, they sent two dozen more. When that failed, they sent two-dozen more. When that failed, we shot down their transports and they shot down my guard."

"Manda'lor stayed behind to continue the fight, I take it?"

"If he retreated, he'd be killed for being a coward. We have to stand and fight."

Leia looked like she might have groaned if she had been just a little bit less tactful. _Mandalorians. Never, ever, have they been rational_.

"We just need to get our fleet operational again. After that happens, we can take on the Order."

"Where, pray tell, are they?"

"Mostly? Our orbital shipyards, drydocked. We just need to get the hyperdrives active for a second, then we can run crews to them."

"So you're asking us to get Rebellion crews onto Mandalorian ships, make sure that we're not being tracked, bring them to a rendezvous, and do this without the Orderlies noticing?"

"That is what we're asking."

"Why can't you do it yourself? No offense," Keset interjected.

"None taken. We need every gun we can muster down on the planet. It's a stretch to crew the Keldabes at all. We need an external force to help us."

"Maybe we can use the commandos from Krownest?" Keset suggested.

"That's not a half-bad idea. We'll need fighters to escort them, but… that might actually work."

"So, we're going to take trained but untested commandos, put them on transports, and fly them to possibly operational and definitely guarded ships in a heavy-guard shipyard and attempt to steal three battleships."

"Yes, ma'am."

Leia put a hand to one of her temples. "This is an insane plan."

Dride nodded.

"Any other options?"

"No, ma'am. None that are less insane than this."

An audible sigh was heard over the comm, before Leia looked up with renewed energy. "Let's do this."

* * *

"Targets straight ahead. Heavy guard. Looks like… four TIE Squadrons, one TIE S/F Squadron."

"Copy. Wing check. Sierra Squadron, Aurek Squadron, Besh Squadron, check callsigns."

Communications rippled across the small fleet of interceptors and fighters as the three wings checked for any absences. Thirty-six callsigns were checked and confirmed, ranging from "Ghost", due to Ghost's hair going white prematurely, to "Spinner", born of an obsession of spinning pencils in his fingers.

"Sierra Squadron, standing by," Sierra Lead, Flare, reported.

"Besh Squadron, standing by," Besh Lead, Temple, called in.

"Aurek Squadron, standing by. All wings ready. Let's clear a path," the leader of Aurek Squadron, callsign Vitality, reported. The fighters began to accelerate as they neared the shipyard area.

"Oh boy. They've seen us," Besh 3, Ammo, called. "Weapons are charging on the SpecForce fighters. They're not happy that we're here."

"Copy, Besh 3. Transports, head for a Keldabe each. Fighters, keep the way clear," Vitality called.

The Fang fighters began roaring into the battle, the wings spinning rapidly around their craft. The Kom'rk transports, slightly slower, began making a beeline for the uncrewed Keldabe battleships.

"Sierra Four, TIE dropping in behind."

"Copy that. I'm swinging around. Sierra Three, can you clear my tail?"

"Hoo-ah."

It was beauty in action. The TIEs and the Fang Fighters dueled in a swirl of laserbeams. Sierra Four ripped through the slightly depleted shields of the TIE and it was engulfed in flames.

"Splashdown. One dead."

"Copy that, Sierra Four. Transports, have you reached the targets?"

The Kom'rk transports had indeed reached a Keldabe each and Mandalorian commandos were now storming off the ramps. On the battleship Sundari's Cry, there was some resistance, and the commandos were now engaged in a running fight with several First Order elements. Shots rattled as the commandos pushed further into the ship. They worked as two teams, one moving for the bridge and another securing the ship's most important functions, such as the reactor. They knew the ship and the best positions to fire from, where the best positions were, and where they were likely to run into enemies like they had trained for this exact scenario for the past ten years.

The bridge team was beginning to run into more significant opposition. Blaster bolts began tearing apart the open hallway as a heavy gunner began to suppress fire.

"Hold! Cover!" the squad leader shouted. "Cor, Jax, suppress fire! Kelri, get a grenade down the hallway!"

The team scrambled. Cor and Jax, both marksmen, fired down the hallway, not necessarily at the enemy but close enough to make them think twice before peeking their helmeted heads. The wall behind would have carbon scoring on it for weeks. Kelri took a detonator from his belt and primed it before diving out of cover, across the hallway, to throw it. As he leapt, his body jerked as a lucky shot bounced off of his shoulder plate. The detonator landed and rolled a little bit, making a strange tink! sound, before it happened. Kelri crashed heavily to the ground and the det blew, creating a orange and black cloud that began to vaporize part of the ground, several bits of armor, and a few molecules of the wall, before throwing debris everywhere else and killing the rest of the stormtroopers that had miraculously survived the first contact. Their bodies were thrown all over the area, with white armor blackened to the color of Mustafar's ashen wastelands.

"Hold fire!" the squad leader, Irel, called. "Keep moving! Bridge is waiting for us!"

The squad continued moving, now at double-time pace. The ground where the grenade had gone off was slightly uneven and Cor stumbled slightly as he ran over it. Irel stepped over a burned corpse and continued, weapon raised.

The bridge doors were wide open, for some reason, but the area was rife with targets. Once again, the corridors exploded with blasterfire. Another grenade likely would have solved the situation, but the team couldn't afford to damage the terminals of Sundari's Cry and be delayed fixing them.

"Check fire! Check fire! Don't hit the controls!" Irel shouted, in Mando'a. Col fired twice and one stormtrooper dropped- a stormtrooper fired and Jax took a hit high on the chest. Another stormtrooper dropped to the ground with a searing hole in his head. Jax moved up and took cover behind a bulkhead before his carbine was shot from his hands. He took out a pistol and fired six times before rolling out of cover and throwing a smoke grenade that covered the area in thick grey fog. The Mandalorians were unaffected, as their helmets came standard with thermal vision and could see through fog. Jax rushed forward, rolled, and came up holding a sharpened karambit, taken from a sheath on the chest, and slid the blade through the gaps in the armor of the nearest trooper. The other three troopers were each shot in the forehead, testament to Col and Kelri's marksmanship.

"Bridge Team to Reactor Team. We're clear up here."

"Copy that, Bridge Team. We're clear down here. Start her up."

The Bridge Team moved in a swarm of activity, activating key functions. The engines roared with blue light as the drydock's clamps disengaged.

"Shields up!"

"Engines at maximum!"

"Recalling Aurek Squadron. Vitality, Aurek, come on home."

"Returning to the _Sundari's Cry_," Vitality reported. The eight surviving Fangs broke off from the dogfight and headed for the hangar. The fighters docked in combat landings, under fire. The hyperdrive began to whine with power, accelerating hyperwave particles, and just before the ship blasted into hyperspace, Irel made a mass transmission to Alliance Command and Manda'lor:

"This is the _Sundari's Cry_. We are away. The _Sundari's Cry_ is away."

There was a massive cheer in the command center as the transmission came through.

Over one drydock, the _Vantablack_ was beginning to pull out as well. Several TIEs strafed the surface of the ship and Fangs attempted to fight them off. One TIE took a direct hit and began to spin out of control before it hit Sierra 3 and ripped through the central cockpit, killing both pilots.

In addition, some First Order stormtroopers were now attacking the Kom'rk that had brought the commandos to the ship, under the assumption they could overpower the 'flight' crew and hijack the ship as the 'fighting' crew had left.

Which really did nothing but show how little they understood about Mandalorians. On a Mandalorian ship, you didn't have 'flight' crew and 'fighting' crew. You had 'fighting' crew and that was it.

There were three stormtroopers that attempted to hijack the transport. One had to dive against the wall as a throwing knife hissed by him and slid deep into the chest of the next soldier, who collapsed to the deck in a heap of white plastoid and red blood. The two remaining looked to their fallen comrade, then to each other, and then the pilot and copilot struck. They used standard issue karambits, with curved, double-sided blades that bit deep into the plastoid armor that the stormtroopers used. The ground was slick with lifeblood.

There was a slight shuddering as the ship slipped into lightspeed. The Fangs of Besh Squadron had docked during the brief-but-brutal fighting, and were now taking a count of all pilots lost. Of the 12 in the squadron, five were now with the Force.

The remaining seven bowed their heads as Temple said a prayer for them, kneeling.

"_Vantablack_ is away. Repeat, _Vantablack_ is secure and away."

Sierra Squadron heard the call from the _Vantablack_ and began to break away from the dogfight, one by one, sliding into the hangar bay, until only the squadron leader was left. Flare rolled his fighter in behind a TIE S/F Fighter and fired repeatedly, shearing the wing off but paying the price for his victory. The rear gunner had landed several shots on his stabilizers in the wings, and there wasn't much he could do about it- he had been flying without any technical support (that is, no onboard A.I. or Astromech units) for most of the fight. Two TIEs dropped in behind him and he was forced to bob and weave, making his mission to dock with his squadron's Keldabe, the Siren's Shine, that much harder. The hyperdrive was heavily damaged, as well- he had to make it onto that Keldabe or die doing so.

The TIEs behind him, sensing weakness, pounced. He dove down and then back up in a maneuver that would kill any pilot without the benefit of artificial gravity, coming into the range of the anti-fighter systems of the Siren's Shine. He rocketed forward and angled his fighter into the hangar as his pursuers were shot to ribbons behind him, and his fighter hit the hangar floor hard. It skidded across the partially empty hangar in a shower of sparks before it came to a rest.

A unmistakable shudder ran through the floor and walls, and the stars turned blue-and-white outside the hangar, as the ship leapt into lightspeed.

"_Siren's Shine_ is away. We're heading for the first rendezvous, Command."

* * *

What felt like half a galaxy away, Leia leaned back in her chair. "Holy Force. They did it."

She chuckled ruefully. "It's like Lothal all over again."

* * *

Manda'lor the Hunter, Boba Fett, took cover behind a broken piece of duracrete that had fallen from a nearby building as another wave of stormtroopers advanced. Nearby, members of the Concord Dawn Protectorate fired from the cover of a shattered storefront. The ships carrying the crews of the Keldabe battleships had taken off and made it to hyperspace early in the day, so now everything was riding on their return. If they could drive off the fleet above the planet, all that would be left for the Imperial leeches after their evacuation would be a burnt husk of a city.

Manda'lor looked skyward, towards the foreboding triangle of the Star Destroyer through the planetary shield.

_C'mon. Anytime now_.


	5. On-Site Detainment

**_Chapter 4_**

_On-Site Detainment_

"_You are only a prisoner when you surrender_."

* * *

Warehouses and dockyards were the primary fixtures of Breental IV. Sitting in between two major hyperspace lanes, it was almost a given that the world was heavily industrialized. Less expected was the heavy military presence- the planet was the home of a large server room under First Order control. As such, it was the perfect place to steal cargo manifests from. It looked relatively simple as a base- perimeter wall, large pathways for walkers, watchtowers every two hundred meters equipped with floodlights and repeating blasters, modified FWMB-10 cannons. Patrols passed each doorway in every ten minutes.

Sabine passed her macrobinoculars to Mira, then pulled on her helmet and began marking targets.

"Orbital 1 Actual, this is Starbird 1-1. Requesting fire at coordinates 101.206725 by 223.423442," Sabine ordered.

Far above the clouds, a small missile craft received her comm. A bay door opened and a warhead protruded, armed and ready for it's kamikaze flight.

"Solid copy, Starbird 1-1. Fire support ready. Stand clear."

Back down on the ground, Sabine tapped Mira's shoulder. "You might want to cover your ears."

"I'll be fine."

Despite these apparently-formidable defenses, the base was wide open. Doors were left unlocked as troopers passed by. The turrets were manned not by troopers with infrared vision, but by AI targeting mechanics that were easily circumvented.

And, of course, the heavy- andpartially incendiary- missile that had just penetrated the atmosphere wasn't going to help matters, either.

"Impact in three."

A loud whining sounded, and a sharp white glare briefly lit up the night as the missile roared and struck. The mushroom cloud that resulted knocked down power to the base, the patrols off track, and the brunt of the defensive power down. Stormtroopers fled their routes to the area of the blast site, where a small fire was beginning to take hold.

"Time to go," Sabine said, tapping Mira's shoulder.

"Yeah," Mira responded, passing the macrobinoculars back to Sabine. Ema nodded to them and took up a rifle, attaching a suppressor to it as she did so. The two jogged down the stairwell from their rented apartment.

"You know what we're doing?" Mira asked.

"Climbing the perimeter fence, making our way to building three, breaking down the wall and hacking into the server so we can find some data to steal," Sabine replied fluidly. They had hashed and rehashed the plan multiple times from within their apartment.

"What do we do if we're caught?"

Sabine didn't say anything, but she did ready a pistol. That said all that was required.

The apartment door opened and the two infiltrators made their way across the road. Very few lights were there to give them away. Even so, every movement they made felt like it was broadcasting their location, like every sound was multiplied by a factor of ten.

Crossing the road provoked no incident. An exterior door had been left wide open- it's guard, either dead or gone to fight the fire.

As the duo approached, it was discovered that the guard was in fact dead. One sniper's blast, clean through the visor, right between the eyes.

"Nice shot, Mira."

"Doing my job, commander."

Sabine crouched down and pulled a small black chip from the inside of the dead trooper's chest armor, then removed the helmet and pulled an identical chip from the inside of the helmet.

"What's that?"

"Keycard transponder. It'll get us access. Looks universal," Sabine responded, spinning it in one hand and continuing to cannibalize the helmet for more parts. "Let's see… wires, mic... ahah! There. Comms unit. We can tap into stormtrooper, maybe even commander comms with it."

"Oh, fun."

"Indeed. Here." Sabine passed a transponder to Mira, who clipped it to her belt.

The transponder worked a treat. The door slid open with a slight metallic hiss. The two crept inside, seeing- sensing- no opposition. They looked to be in some sort of research area- datapads were spread across the tables and test tubes were neatly arranged in a rack along the sterile white wall. There was a slight burning smell in the air, probably from chemicals of some sort.

Sabine kept moving. Mira looked over the datapads, deleting some things, adding things elsewhere, and pocketing one datapad.

"Mira? What are you doing?"

"Committing crimes against a totalitarian regime. I thought you encouraged things like that."

Sabine nodded and waved Mira over. "I do. Could you cut through this door?"

"Yeah, sure." Mira's saber, intricately designed with a black grip and a beautiful silver, vine-like design wrapping around the upper half of the saber, and a decal of a tree with two wolf heads facing it on the bottom. The yellow blade, created by a hyper-rare Rainbow Gem that made the saber even more powerful, was unique in that it was almost never used by anyone that wasn't a Temple Guard or an undercover operative.

"Just the wall. There's a server right behind it."

"I got it, Mom. Watch this," Mira said, burning through the wall- and torching the server. Her face fell as she realized what she did.

"Good job," Sabine said, sighing. "Cut through the rest of the wall and move the server. I'll cover you."

"I'll just- Down!"

Sabine didn't hesitate. She just ducked and rolled as a blood-red lightsaber whizzed too close to her head and was barely blocked by Mira's yellow blade. There was a crash of light on light as the blades met and Sabine saw the eyes of her attacker. Yellow pupils. A mask that covered the lower half of her attacker's face was pitch-black and silver. Their robes were all black and grey, with glowing red lights implanted within the angular, blocky armor, looking like angry eyes.

"Jedi. True quarry. I was under the impression that you rot had been purged." The attacker spoke with words that were dripping with pure hatred. Mira had never heard it before. Sabine was... not scared, but concerned by it's raspy voice and vengeful tone.

"You're a Inquisitor, I presume?"

"I serve the Knights of Ren, Mandalorian. You've gotten no more perceptive since I last saw you, hiding in the rubble of Lothal's capital."

"Interesting. Ezra said he felt something dark, but I assumed it was just the spirits of all the snowmen we killed while holding onto our homes. Chakaar Demagolka."

The red blade whirred over Sabine's head again. Sabine rolled backwards and stood.

"And yet, your pitiful, backwater utopia shattered just like Hosnian."

Mira was holding her blade above her head with a dangerous glint in her eyes. She stood in a balanced stance. Adrenaline coursed with every pump of her hammering heart.

"Shut the hell up," she said, voice sharp as a vibroblade. "You're not allowed to talk about Lothal like that."

"Oh?" the Inquisitor responded. "And will you stop me?"

"With my final damn breath, if need be," Mira said through gritted teeth.

"I suppose I should focus on the threat first, but Jedi killing means promotions." The voice from behind the mask was cynical, even sadistic. He took a lazy swing at Mira, who blocked it without much effort. He took another swing, this time with some effort put into it. Mira swayed back. It swung past her.

"You're not very good at this, are you?" Mira taunted. The Knight glared at her, she couldn't see his eyes but she could feel his gaze, and he put energy into a smashing blow, going downwards. Mira sidestepped. The blade sliced through the metallic grey floor.

More strikes came now, faster. A side cut from the left was blocked, but forced Mira back. A thrust was deflected to the left and stabbed through a box. There was a smell of burning flimsi. A slashing attack from overhead was deflected to the left, slicing through a table, spilling flimsis and datapads all over the floor. Mira vaulted over another table, spinning to deflect yet another blow, this time running it along the wall, cutting a strange sigil into the lab. Another blow slid past Mira's arm, just barely missing, leaving an angry blister.

"No more messing around," the Knight said, darkly. He threw his strength into a sideways cut that would bisect anything. Mira threw all of her strength into deflecting that cut, and just barely stopped it. The two blades were interlocked as both parties pushed, trying to sway it one way or another.

Slowly, but surely, the blade came towards Mira.

She was losing the fight.

Just as it reached low enough for her to feel the energy of the blades, something spoke in her mind. A female, with a silky voice.

Reach out. Use the Force to fight.

As a last ditch effort, she followed the strange voice's advice. Her mother was fighting stormtroopers with a knife outside, her blasters needing a reload. Dark feelings, rage and hatred poured off the Knight of Ren. She could feel the lifeforce of the troopers as her mom fought, the determination rolling in waves, radiating from Sabine, and she could feel the room around her more vividly than the heat of the sabers.

She pulled the strings of the Force, tugging a cabinet once, twice, thrice, until it's supports crumpled and she was able to hurl it at the Knight. He jumped backwards, and the cabinet crashed into a table.

The lab was in chaos by now. Burn marks covered the walls. Flimsis and datapads were scattered across the floor. Mira reached out again with the Force and propelled a table that the Knight caught with their bare hands. Both parties were heaving, gasping for air.

The Knight hurled their saber forward like a spear. Mira stepped backwards to dodge it and slipped on a flimsi.

The Knight took his opportunity and attacked with a crushing overhead blow. Mira rolled to the side, her own blade burning her arm as she did so. She cried in pain but continued, standing and bracing herself against a table. She reached out and threw a vial of something, which blew up on contact and engulfed the area in fire. The Knight walked out of the fire, seemingly unscathed but disoriented. His cloak had a tendril of flame on it.

The voice came again. 'Now, attack. Jump over the table and land behind him.'

Mira followed the voice, silently thanking it.

'You are welcome.'

Mira shook her head to clear it and leapt over the table, slicing her blade through the mask of the Knight. The Knight, for his part, took a wild swing at Mira in retaliation. She caught it with her hand and spun like she was doing a bridal dance, bisecting the unfortunate Knight, who fell in two heaps. Then, as if to finish off her target, she reversed her grip and stabbed downwards, into her target's chest.

The Knight flailed a little, then fell limp and lifeless.

Two Stormtroopers pounded into the room and began firing. Mira deflected one shot into the wall and dashed for the door. A bolt caught her in the shoulder as she ran, and she stumbled, but she continued on.

Sabine rolled to dodge a new hail of blasterfire as Mira came running out of the building, lightsaber still ignited, and decapitated a stormtrooper who came too close. She had a wild look in her eyes. Deflected shots bounced off her blade into another trooper as Sabine hurled a grenade that detonated in between the turret and the armor of a inactive tank that was looking increasingly like it was powering up.

"We've got to get out of here," Mira said, sliding into cover by Sabine. The burn on her arm made her wince.

"Emma, could you give us some help?"

The radio just bursted static.

"Emma?"

Silence.

"We're on our own."

Sabine peeked out and was rewarded with absolutely nothing. The stormtroopers had gone to ground.

"They've taken cover."

"I noticed," Mira responded. "Let's try to get out from over there."

"That's right next to where the missile hit."

"Yeah. So?"

"It's currently on fire."

"So? We can run through it. Your armor isn't flammable."

"And yours is!"

"Do we have a choice?!"

"Yes! There is always a choice!"

"Well, what is it?"

"That fence. Climb it."

"Maybe cut through it?"

"No time. I'll go first."

"No. We go together."

Sabine mentally facepalmed. Externally, she nodded, peeking out from cover and filling a trooper with laser shots.

"On three. One, two, three!"

Sabine didn't hesitate. She dashed, sprinted full speed, wilding firing to discourage anyone trying to stop her. Her simultaneously-glad-and-unwilling muscles propelled her onto the fence like a professional parkourist, landing halfway up and scrambling the rest of the way. Mira simply used the Force to leap over the wall.

Right into the waiting arms of a new squad of stormtroopers, with weapons already trained. They fired before either rebel could do anything, and everything went black.

* * *

Sabine woke up a few minutes later, sequestered in a cell.

Actually, cell was a generous definition. It was a grey, sterile, lifeless box.

Sabine didn't like the box.

She had been stripped of her armor, but not her bodysuit- and that meant that she still had a lockpick, a knife, a holdout blaster, thermopaste, a portable camera scrambler, and six microgrenades. Extracting the lockpick from the wrist of her bodysuit and the knife from the lower inner thigh, she observed the door that prevented access to the outside world. The energy shield glowed orange in the dim light. There was a lock on both sides.

Idiots.

The lock sprung open in less than two seconds. As the shield dropped, Sabine, holding the knife that she had removed from the covert sheath, carefully stepped out. No one contested it.

She moved down the line to the next cell and sprung the lock. Inside, Mira was chained to the wall by her wrists. There was a suggestive rip across her shirt, and another on her leggings. Her head hung low, with her eyes closed. It looked like she was unconscious. A nasty bruise rested on her brow.

"Demagolka," Sabine muttered. Another score to settle.

She unlocked the chains. Mira collapsed to the floor and stayed unconscious, teal hair in a mess on the floor.

Sabine shook her head. "Damnit." She exited the cell, closing the door, and continued down the hallway, looking for the evidence room where they were likely holding her gear. No one was in the hallways, which surprised her.

Voices, up ahead. Turns out there was someone, after all.

"I just don't understand why we're holding the gear. We should burn it."

"Nah. Let's learn something. They've got to be hiding their gear inside their armor. It's the oldest trick in the book."

"Hey, did you hear we almost caught a sniper?"

"Yeah. In the apartment, right? She jumped out the window. Then we caught her friends as they were running from the base."

Sabine shook her head and looked around, spying a few pieces of miscellaneous items. She grabbed one- a grey orb- and threw it across the way.

"Hey, did you hear that?" one trooper said. "I'm gonna check it out."

"You do that," the other trooper said, rather airily. The door hissed open, and Sabine sprung, sinking the blade straight through the armor, before pulling it out and hurling it at the other trooper. They both dropped dead.

The armor was laid out on the table as if it hadn't been touched. She attached the chest armor first, luxuriating in the feel of the beskar'gam. She reattached the holster for her pistols, her jai'galaars, around her waist, loving the confident weight they provided.

Having placed the stolen and re-stolen armor back onto the latches provided by the bodysuit and securing them, she turned her attention to the helmet. An angry black scar ran over the left side. A large dent sat on the back left. Several smaller dents riddled the right side. It smelled of cherry-scented shampoo, paint, and sweat.

Sabine smiled. Her home may have burnt when the First Order came, but the tools to get it back lay in her hands- so to speak.

She pulled it on. The HUD began cycling, rebooting, bringing up ammo count, sensors, night and thermal vision, and a dozen other goodies that get ruined by EMP Grenades. Keeping the lockpick in her left hand and a blaster in the other, she packed up Mira's items- a spare set of clothing, a blaster, lockpick, lightsaber, and an autographed copy of On Circles, by Ikora Rey, and returned to the cell that held Mira. She had woken up by now, and was currently sitting in the middle of the room, meditating.

Sabine pushed the button to lower the shield that locked her daughter in and extracted the other pair of leggings and a coat from the bag, then tossed them to Mira, along with a question.

"They didn't… do anything, right?"

"Not anything I couldn't handle," Mira responded, while quickly changing. She tugged on the black coat and zipped it up, then clipped the lightsaber to her belt. "Let's go."

"You're sure you're okay? They did nothing?"

"I'll be fine, mom. Let's go."

Her answer didn't give Sabine much confidence, but they had to do.

The hallways were lit brightly, and as such the two walked down them silently, communicating with only hand signals. No one was around any of the corners- it seemed like the troopers killed earlier were the ones that guarded the detention area.

Outside wasn't much better. It had begun to rain during the detainment, and now the path was slick with mud.

Only this time, they weren't being shot at, so everything was easier. The wall, once again, was climbed and jumped over. The floodlights all shone towards the inside of the base, so sneaking away was trivial. The buildings gave cover as soon as they managed to cross the street. A stray, sharp pipe gave Mira a cut across her cheek, but she ignored it and continued on.

Right into another pipe.

Sabine heard her cry out in pain and looked back to see her fall face down. She ran back and scooped her up in a fireman's carry, then continued running.

The Stormwhite lay in the spaceport, wings extended skyward. Emma stood just outside of the ship holding a blaster rifle. As the door to their private bay opened, she aimed over towards the source of the disturbance, finger on the trigger. Just a shiver would send a blaster bolt hurtling towards what was probably just a dock worker. (It payed to be sure.)

"Emma!" Sabine called. "It's us! Check fire!"

Emma slung the rifle over her back and dashed over. "Are you hurt?"

"We're fine. Let's get out of here," Sabine responded. Muddy footprints led up the ramp as the team got on. Emma kept watch as they stumbled upwards.

Sabine placed Mira down into a bed in the tiny medical bay and attached a heart rate monitor, then some easy-to-remove transport straps so she wouldn't fall off the bed.

"Emma, let's get going already," she shouted into the hallway.

"One step ahead of you." A shudder ran through the ship as the artificial gravity came online and takeoff procedures began. The ship pressurized itself automatically, preparing to exit the atmosphere 98,332 meters early.

"Unauthorized pilot, please return to your docking bay for immediate inspection," a control tower radioed.

"Oh my haran," Emma cursed. "This is the _Starfire Protocol_. Who the hell said that the port was locked down? I'm getting the hell out of here before whoever attacked the military base blows me up too."

Before the tower could respond, Emma gunned the thrusters, roaring upwards, before entering the coordinates for the next system over. TIE Fighters were scrambled to intercept, but they were way down on the planet or high in orbit; the Starbird was just exiting the atmosphere at 128,964 meters. The navicomputer was frantically adjusting for angle and position as the engines roared and the stars meshed together, becoming a sort of electric web-looking amalgamation, before the jump to hyperspace was complete and the small team vanished from the system.

Question: Can we make a petition to remove the Sequel Trilogy from canon and substitute in Legends? It's much better written and provides so many more opportunities.

(Also, I refuse to be stuck with... *shakily points at sequels* ...that)


	6. Devil's Brigade

**_Alright, after rewatching Rise of Skywalker (it didn't get any better the second time) and launching the "People" story, it dawned on me that the timeline I've envisioned for this... doesn't work. So, this story is now going to be going through a rewrite from Chapter 5 onwards. No changes have been made so far, but I'll update as I go._**

**_As Hemmingway said, "The first draft of anything is sh*t. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite."_**

**_Cheers, hope everyone reading is healthy or well on the way to recovery. _**

**_-RebelliousWaffle_**

* * *

_"If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly."_

* * *

There was a shift on the deck as the Sundari's Cry entered hyperspace. Every member of the Devil's Brigade felt it. There were twelve hours until combat now.

The mess hall was serving spiced meat skewers and shaak steaks. As soon as the doors opened, you could smell it through your helmet. Drinks trended towards alcoholic, Acklay Blues in particular, but today there were few drinking heavily. People were eating both in and out of armor, some were painting as they ate, some were working to clean weapons or revise battle plans. Their determination was almost as pungent as the spices.

"Mehi, you having fun?" a man, clad in black armor with white jaig eyes and detailing, called over to a woman, also in white armor but with scarlet livery. She was armwrestling without her helmet on, so one could see both the sweat on her brow and her short brown hair. Her helmet, with it's swirls of scarlet that ran into small flowery designs above her eyes and near the nape of her neck, was resting beside her.

"Never more," Mehi called back. Her arm was slanted to the left as she began to force her opponent's arm down. The strain in her voice was evident as she said, through gritted teeth, "Not bad, Kelri."

"You're not so bad yourself," Kelri responded. His teeth were also being ground to dust as he gritted them. His black armor had a deep green stripe running down the side, crossing the left of the breastplate, the left of his helmet, the left leg and the left side of his jetpack. Gold detailing, like vines, covered his right arm and there was detailing to simulate kohl underneath the right eye of the T-visor. A wolf fur parka ran around his helmet, making him look like a Viking, and a black kama had the same gold detailing as his armor, but also at the bottom was a ring of wolf fur. He struggled back against his squadmate to no avail.

It should be added that Mehi was a heavy gunner, who routinely wielded a 40-pound rotary cannon, and Kelri was a demolitions specialist, who's most heavy weapon was a four-pound carbine.

Kelri's armored hand and stark gauntlet hit the table, making a metallic thwap. "Fek."

Mehi smirked at him. "Looks like I'm still the Queen of Arm-Wrestling."

"If you want, we could try another type of wrestling," Kelri responded with a shine in his eye. Mehi instantly turned bright, bright red.

"Damn, vod," Cor remarked, sitting next to him. "You got her looking like she got sunburned on Tatooine."

"Shet- bleh. Shut up, Cor," Mehi stuttered out.

Cor smirked beneath his erin-green armor. Orange jaig eyes and kohl peered at the heavy gunner. Across from him, the exact same helmet gave silent agreement.

"Kelri may not look like much-" Jax, Cor's twin brother, began.

"Hey!"

"But he's a dependable vod. He'd take a grenade for you," Jax finished. "Took a bolt for me on Onderon. Right to the chest. See that circle, right-" Jax pointed to a small black circle, highlighted by a small ring of blue; "Right there? E-11 longblaster. Gunner was going for my head. Crazy fekker that he is, Kelri jumped in front of it. That's why I have two dashes of pink on my shoulder. One is for Irel, one's for Kelri."

"Belsavis?" Keno asked, hearing Irel's name mentioned. Jax's helmeted head nodded.

"I still don't know how he did it," Keno shook her head. Mehi got the feeling that she was missing something. "Anyone try the shaak meat? I don't know if it's any good."

"It's tolerable, but a bit thick," Cor responded. The squad was clearly glad to be away from the topic of Belsavis.

"I liked it," Jax added.

"You liked the sausages."

"They were good!"

"They were hybrids of glue and sawdust."

"How would you know what that tastes like?"

"You're telling me no one has ever made you eat the floor in a match?"

"That is exactly what I am saying."

Keno cracked her fingers. Red streaks intertwined with gold on them as they ran up the vambraces into black upper-arm and shoulder armor. Her chestplate was all-black, as were her legs. Her helmet, clipped to her belt, had gold kohl styling and two red lines running from her forehead to her jetpack, which had it's thrusters painted gold. "I'll change that, if you keep running your mouth like a shabla loudspeaker."

Cor put his hands up in surrender. Keno smirked and brought a piece of shaak to her mouth. "This is good. Not as good as the kebabs, but good."

"How many dishes have you had?" Mehi asked, over her stupor.

"Three. This is my fourth."

"Shab, you eat a lot," Jax muttered. Keno smirked and spoke.

"Can't keep my curves without food."

Jax gave a little laugh. "Curves? If you say so. I'll believe it when I see it."

"Would you like to see? I'll show you them personally, pretty boy," Keno fired back with a wink.

"Get a room," Cor groaned. "Or put your sun bonnets on."

"Never," Keno drawled.

"Ugh. In that case, I'm going to the range." Cor stood up and took his tray to the counter.

"You're just jealous!" Jax called. Cor raised a green gauntlet in acknowledgement, then formed it into a V-shape, similar to the V for Victory symbol. The door hissed open and he left.

Kelri leaned over to Mehi. "They're not going to get out of this mood for a while yet. You meet Rhujad yet? She's the gunner of Patriot Squad."

Mehi shook her head. Kelri moved down the table and called over a woman in silver armor, with grey jaig eyes and a yellow breastplate with matching shoulderpads. A red kama fell over the grey of the leg armor and a red pauldron completed the look. "Rhu! Over here."

"Kel!" Rhujad shouted. She had a cheery air about her as she moved over to the table, setting her tray down next to Kelri.

"How's Patriot treating you, Rhu?" the demoman asked. Rhujad shrugged.

"Not bad. Still wish I was in Sydney with you, but I'll live."

Kelri tapped his shoulderplate, which had a scarlet forked tail and horns on it. "We're both in Devil's Brigade. That's good enough for me."

"Yeah but I want to be with you," Rhujad whined.

"Nice kama," Mehi commented. "Where do you people get those?"

"I made mine from cortosis-reinforced fabric," Rhujad responded. "Kelri got his from his clan. I can show you how to make it, if you want."

"I'd like that," Mehi said.

"It's settled, then. After we get back, we're making you a kama."

* * *

Jax and Keno stood across from each other in the ring. They both still wore their body gloves, but none of their armor. Keno bounced lightly on her feet. "Point sparring?"

"Sure," Jax responded with a slight shrug. They bowed to each other and assumed their guards. Jax instantly sprung off his back foot, front arm outstretched, and attacked with a backfist, tagging Keno's forehead and landing fluidly. Keno attempted to raise one arm to block the sweeping attack but was too slow. A second attack, a reverse punch with the other hand, was unneeded.

The round was finished in less than three seconds.

Keno shook her head. "Should have seen that coming."

Jax smirked and raised his guard.

Keno took initiative and cartwheeled, intending to simply smash through her opponent's guard with insane crushing force. Her one oversight was that Jax was, in fact, able to move, and as she came up from her cartwheel she had to sway backwards wildly to avoid a kick. Two more punches were blocked as she jumped back slightly, evading another kick and striking back with the left side of her left hand- a ridgehand- and a backfist.

Jax blocked the ridgehand and evaded the backfist, then charged low, scooping up one of Keno's legs and sending her tumbling down to the ground. After a brief scuffle in which neither of the two had much control over the other, Jax eventually wound up straddling Keno's chest, with one knee pinning her arm.

"Well, this is a new position~" Keno drawled. "Not unwelcome~"

"Isn't there some sort of grace period for flirting when you're mid-fight?"

"Nope. None that I'm aware of." Keno shifted slightly and grunted. "Could you get off me?"

"Why? You clearly like this."

"Because, sexy as you are, you're really fekking heavy."

"Wow. Aren't you kind."

Keno trapped one of Jax's legs and heaved. Another brief scuffle later, Keno was in much the same position as Jax had been previously.

"Now this is better~ Too bad you're still clothed~"

"Manda, you're a flirt," Jax groaned.

"Mmhmhm," Keno responded. "You like it, don't lie~"

Jax looked skyward, attempting to block out a very lewd image of Keno straddling his hips naked. 'No, not the time for that!'

"Ooh, that's new~" Keno laughed slightly. "Finally admitting it's working, huh~?"

Jax sighed, glad his helmet was on so she couldn't see the redness in his cheeks. "Keno, please. There are other people here."

"So we should go somewhere private~? Mmm, good idea~."

Keno stood and tugged Jax to his feet, telling him to follow her through the halls of the Sundari's Cry to her room.

"We're here," Keno said, leading Jax inside. Many of his favorite memories with Keno had happened in this room- their first kiss, for one. It wasn't the most luxurious room- there was a desk, closet, and a bed, and that was about it- but it was enough.

Keno gently shoved him onto the bed and began removing his armor.

* * *

Outside, five squadrons of X-Wings appeared from hyperspace. Each one punched in target coordinates for Mandalore and synced their engines with the Mandalorian fleet.

The X-Wings were new upgrades, freshly painted and manufactured on Rodina and gifted to Light Wing after the Battle and subsequent Evacuation of Lothal savaged the wing, leaving only three of the original members alive. Alongside the three squadrons of Light Wing flew the Sky Witches.

"Feels strange to be flying alongside battleships again," the flight leader, Shirio, radioed. Her black and dark-green X-Wing, almost invisible, bore the telltale marks of a experienced pilot- an R2 unit, instead of the newer BB or R9 units, carbon scoring on the nosecone and wings, and red TIE insignias painted just below the cockpit.

"I'd rather be with than without," pilot Smoke, responded, looking over enviously at the X-Wings of Light Squadron. Just the "veteran" pilots alone in Light- Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree Kyrell- had over a hundred kills, with seventy of those being confirmed kills and the rest statistically and logically probable. Ciena and Thane had deigned from marking their kills, however, instead simply painting their crafts gold and white.

"As long as they don't get in our way," Shirio said. "Witches, sync your coordinates with the fleet."

Two additional CR90 corvettes, the Minuteman and the Indium, appeared alongside a Nebulon-C frigate. The combined fleet floated in space for a minute, before the engines flared again and the fleet disappeared.

* * *

The Counselor was a good ship, Ezra decided.

A modified Nebulon-C frigate that had given up it's turbolasers for medical bays (so to speak- it was still armed), the Counselor was one of the few New Republic Defense Force ships that had escaped massacre or scuttling and gone to the Resistance, escaping alongside the Minuteman, Indium, and the now-broken Charles Brown supply ship. The medical bays had been in chaos as it had entered Caldera's airspace, (though it did so more due to hyperdrive failure than anything else), and such heavy damage meant that the Charles Brown had to be cannibalized to let it fly again. Medical personnel were swapped out as the ship was raised from the grave, and now the ship was relatively stable.

Now, it was flying to support the assault on Mandalore. The revised plan was less a battle, more an evacuation- from what Manda'lor the Hunter had been able to tell them of the occupation, it was more of a mass execution.

The plan was simple: Sundari City was first on the list to be cleared of opponents, going from the top of the governmental citadel to the outskirts. After that, they would sweep across the planet from city to city, avoiding military bases but marking them for bombardment. The first priority was the civilian population of Mandalore.

Ezra looked over a holograph of the city of Sundari with the three other commanders of the assault. General Cysil was loading a simulated defense of the city, marking hotspots of enemy activity. Commanders Dal and Saxo were helping, designing ways to tackle the hotspots.

"If we set up a CP in the citadel, we'll be able to fix the comms and bring chaos down," Cysil argued. "We'll be able to set up FOBs from there."

"Our first priority is civilians. We can't protect them if we're busy rerouting comms," Dal responded.

"We need to run this campaign efficiently in order to protect civilians. For that, we need comms."

"You're both right," Saxo intervened. "We can do both."

"We need to prioritize one, though."

"Well, how big is the transmitter? We can dispatch a specialist crew to fix it."

"No good. We need someone to defend it as well."

Saxo snapped his fingers. His gloves made him lose the effect. "Patriot Squad."

"Patriot Squad?"

"Part of Devil's Brigade. Tell them to defend the transmitter while the techies fix it. Then we can reassign the other squads elsewhere."

"Okay, so, let's say that works. Where are we setting up the FOBs?"

"These locations, with outposts along the primary airlanes."

"A mall, a major residential area, and a police station."

"Yes. Look- the Sundari Mall is at the center of six of Sundari's main airlanes, the Skyline district covers the two others, and the police station can cover the remainder. From there, we can shift our focus to the individual suburbs and clear area-to-area."

"That endangers civilians. Our first priority needs to be keeping them safe."

"They will be safe, if we clear fast enough."

"Fast means dangerous. Better to go slow and steady. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. Tell me they still teach that on Corellia."

"If we go too slow, they'll start using human shields."

"Ready sniper teams, then."

"Are you insane? What if they miss?"

"I'm not saying aim for the hostage-taker. I want them shooting commanders. Make them think twice about giving the order to stand up and take a hostage."

* * *

In the training room of the Counselor, Sabine was pacing up and down her row of shooters. Two other trainers were doing the same with other teams of thirty-six.

"Row one, cease fire!" she called. "Take your targets and count your points. Tell me if they fall under eighty."

The thirty-six commandos she had been training were coming along nicely, and were absolutely ready to see combat. Their shooting approached the old Crusaders of yore, or maybe the spice-running smugglers that one saw in holos that always had a finger on the trigger and a wit to match- none of them scored below a sixty in ten shots, and most scored ninety or above.

Most, but not all.

A newer boy approached her, holding his durasteel cutout. Five of his shots had missed, and the ones that had hit were way off center, giving him a thirty in points.

"I got a thirty," he said, unnecessarily. Sabine winced under her helmet.

"That's not good," she said, looking over the plate. "Show me your weapon, kid."

The boy jogged back towards his bench and took up his rifle, passing it to his instructor. Sabine looked over it quickly, noting the sight magnification was off slightly. She quickly readjusted it, shooting it once at a nearby plate. It dinged off the right side, in the three point zone.

That wasn't right. If she knew anything, she knew that she was a better shot than that. Taking a stance, she fired twice more. Both shots dinged off the right side, in the three and four point zones.

Next, she took out her pistol, firing three times. Each shot struck the target center mass.

"Kid, run down to the quartermaster and grab a set of repair tools and a new rifle. Say I told you to do it."

The kid took off at a jog down the hallway. Sabine continued shooting, alternating shots between her pistol and the defective rifle, adjusting the scope as she did so. Every shot pulled to the right. She frowned, suspecting sabotage.

The kid returned with the new rifle and repair tools in record time, panting slightly- he'd probably sprinted the entire way. Sabine took the repair tools and laid the defective rifle on a bench nearby, then instructed the kid to continue shooting.

Stripping the rifle's sights proved to be easier than expected. They slid off, laying the iron sights bare. A quick repair job of reattaching and securing the sights took thirty seconds to do. Noting that the sight magnification was still slightly off, Sabine shot three times, striking the target center mass each time.

_Ding, ding, ding__!_ went the impacts, bringing a smile to her face.

Jackpot.

"Your sights were loose, rookie," she declared, handing the rifle back to the private. "Try it again. Ten shots."

"Thank you, ma'am."


End file.
